A month has passed since I've been able to train again at some level due to the shoulder injury. At first the plan was to just focus on the lower body, but I started transitioning to light upper body training. This was a mistake in retrospect. The chin-ups felt odd on the shoulder, the overhead presses felt fine, but afterwards made the shoulder ache, but I think ultimately the deadlifts were the most punishing on the shoulder. Once my favorite lift, I strived to get back to deadlifting. Now I find myself at another standstill.
I will continue training legs through squats mostly. I do not plan on deadlifting, overhead pressing, or pull-ups for the next month. Perhaps in June I'll try those lifts again.
I learned a few things from this past month of lifting while injured. First, I like the feeling that goes along with lifting versus not lifting. When you are lifting consistently, you build some tension in your muscles and nervous system that stays with you 24/7 until it tapers off. Generally I've swapped between training for muscle or strength or both, but now I have a new goal. I've put on an ample amount of muscle and the rate at which I can build muscle has slowed, and so training for muscle is not a priority. Training for strength requires me to life too heavy to see results, and even attaining those strength gains does not necessarily translate to anything aesthetically, and all that goes along with strength training makes it not worth it (infrequent training, not building muscle, large calorie consumption, and high risk of injury).
So my latest reason to train is for aesthetics with a priority of being in the gym often. As someone who hasn't found their form of cardio in life yet, I need all the weight lifting possible to burn calories.
